


Ramble On

by LiberAmans214



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parent John Winchester, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Castiel and Selfies, Castiel is a dork, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester are Siblings, Dean Winchester-centric, Dean likes to cook, Domestic Fluff, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gen, M/M, POV Third Person, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Shipper Sam, Toxic Masculinity, destiel crack, mentions of childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 11:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21355660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiberAmans214/pseuds/LiberAmans214
Summary: When Dean got his first phone under his real name, he was seventeen.It wasn't even his birthday or anything. There was a vamp nest, a couple cities over. And that time, Sam had won the argument with Dad, and the brothers were to stay behind - and go to school, Sam had primarily argued - while John went off to take care of the hunt. But it was close to holiday season, so no motels had vacancies for more nights than one, and they were looking to stay indefinitely - so John's only option had been to rent a flat.It was a one bedroom place, the kind which would've been cramped if they'd had any furniture at all. The building had an air of misery, but it was probably just the cold. Even the landlord didn't live there anymore.But now, Sam was thirteen and tall, and Dean worked weekends - so they were old enough in John's book, to be left back; with money that wasn't theirs, and that one cellphone with a month's bill paid. Dean's first cellphone.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55





	Ramble On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [all-or-nothing-baby (BundleOfSoy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BundleOfSoy/gifts).

> HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, LUCY THE LOVELY CROUTON!!!

Cas is '_**The Secret Boyfriend**_' in Dean's phone.

He was originally _**Cass**_, till Cas saw it once and was horrified enough for Dean to feel guilty.

Soon enough, he was **_Cas <3_** because he happened to leave his cell lying around Sam.

And then, when Cas and Dean started - _well_ \- calling each other boyfriends; Charlie had frowned when he'd referred to it as starting to date, because apparently, they'd been doing that for years already - Dean changed it himself to '_**Bf', **_induced by a particular drunken night of missing him terribly.

There were further transitions, all revolving about the same theme. There was a certain thrill, Dean realised. Occasionally, Cas would want to know what he was being called that week, with that soft smile on his face, and Dean would be proud to tell him. Sometimes he'd have to explain the nicknames.

Good times.

He never had to ask, though. Dean had been **_Humanity_** in his contacts, long since Crowley got his hands on it.

One sunny morning, during breakfast in their windowless kitchen, Cas asks him again. Dean just nudges his phone in his direction, occupied in trying to get his omelette fit in the pan just right.

Cas laughs when he sees, **_Cas, _**_**secret boyfriend. **_He reads it aloud to Dean, who has his back turned to him, shirtless and apron adorned.

Dean practically stutters around to stare at him. "But -" He was sure he'd put **_Cherrypie_** earlier that week, so how could it have changed since_ \- unless,_ of fucking course, Gabriel must have got his hands on it again. Goddammit. It seems to be his newest way of annoying Dean. "I didn't -" He begins.

But Cas has a faint smile on his lips, as he edits it himself, nimble fingers now having learned to be quick as they dance across the keyboard.

Dean leans over his shoulder to read, and Cas tilts his head to let Dean see. "That made it seem like there might be others." His scruff strokes Dean's bicep as he told him. It tickles.

"Other secret boyfriends?" Dean repeats, licking his lips, leaning in further and allowing Cas to press his lips to the corner of Dean's shy smile.

"Other Cas's." Cas corrects.

"Nah." Dean shakes his head, if only to get Cas's lips to move against his cheek. "You're the only Cas for me, Cas." Cas's lips curl into a smile, and it's a smooth transition, he can feel it right on his skin. Dean loves being close to Cas.

"You're the only Dean for me too." Cas tells him frankly, dimpling as he finally plants an actual kiss on Dean's lips, by using a hand to turn his jaw to get it on the mark just right. Dean's eyes close instantly, when Cas cups his face. They linger.

For a moment too long, or maybe too little, they're lost. Then, Dean lets his hand fall on the back of Cas's neck, and ghost the inside of his collar, and Cas shifts in his seat, putting some distance between them. If Cas hadn't pulled back just then, Dean could bet he would've ended up straddling him - even for as sweet as they'd been kissing.

Cas sighs, softly, as if he was returning from somewhere. "Dean, I think your omelette just turned into scramble."

"Oh, well." Dean grins, straightening. Satisfied. "You'd eat whatever I fed you."

"You've taught me that's love." Cas throws back, half accusatory, mostly just smiling. Dean feels a flutter in his insides at the word, as he turns back to the stove.

And that's the story of how Cas started being called _**The Secret Boyfriend**_ by Dean's phone.

***

There's Cas smiling at him, head tucked under Dean's arm and everything, whenever he unlocks his phone to his home screen.

When Dean got his first phone under his _real_ name, he was seventeen.

John surprised him with it.

It wasn't even his birthday or anything. There was a vamp nest, a couple cities over. And that time, Sam had won the argument with Dad, and the brothers were to stay behind - and go to _school_, Sam had primarily argued - while John went off to take care of the hunt. But it was close to holiday season, so no motels had vacancies for more nights than one, and they were looking to stay indefinitely - so John's only option had been to rent a flat.

It was a one bedroom place, the kind which would've been cramped if they'd had any furniture at all. The building had an air of misery, but it was probably just the cold. Even the landlord didn't live there anymore.

But now, Sam was thirteen and tall, and Dean worked weekends - so they were _old_ enough in John's book, to be left back; with money that wasn't theirs, and that one cellphone with a month's bill paid. Dean's first phone.

The next day, lying on the bed because they hadn't bought a new couch and Dean definitely wasn't going to touch the one that'd come with the house unless at gunpoint, Dean set his first wallpaper.

It was Gunnar Lawless, flexing a bicep, and smirking over his shoulder, head cocked as if to look right into Dean's eyes, as he stared at his screen in wonder. Someday, he'd have guns like those, and friends like him. Someday, he'd be a man like him.

John returned in a week's time. They drove away. (Didn't even tell the landlord they were vacating the house, because then they'd have to give reasons. Lying wasn't a problem. But it got boring, sometimes.)

Dean grew up.

When he hit nineteen - around the same time he moved to that one highscool in Texas where he'd eventually meet Rhonda Hurley, he made a friend.

Ben was _cool_. He taught Dean things, though he probably didn't know Dean was learning from him. Dean was good at that.

Once, Ben had snickered at some guy's clothes. Said it was a _lot_. Guys were supposed to keep it cool. Keep it simple, keep it casual.

Those had been the origins of 'Less is More'. The basics are the classics, a little is a lot, things like that. If you were untraditional about things like mobile wallpapers, you were trying too hard.

Dean knew that was stupid.

Dean also knew he was going to change it to the default.

He felt good about it for just about a minute, and then just foolish. He would even have changed it back, _Ben could screw off, he didn't care,_ if only he'd kept staring at his screen for longer. But break was over, and Dean picked up his books and Ben picked up his, and they went off to class.

Sadly, the boring grey squares stuck with Dean for much longer than the school and his friend did.

Much later, when highschool was all done, and Sammy was all gone - Dean changed it to Baby.

It had been a night spent wholly driving, with Dad passed out next to him. Don't worry, he was alright. Just the final showdown of a hunt, and then the alcohol. Never a good pair, Dean remembered thinking, back then.

It was a good angle for Baby, showed off her strength, magnificence and color. Dean felt almost proud of the photo he'd taken. The aluminium glistened and the glass had a cleaner sheen somehow. She looked terrific, headlights blazing and everything - and it was his. They'd had that conversation earlier that night, and though John had been sufficiently drunk, Dean knew he'd remember his words. The Impala was his. Hell, Dean didn't spare a thought to the former definition of cool, as he changed his wallpaper.

His _car_ was what was fucking cool. Anybody who wanted to tell him otherwise could go screw himself.

Baby stayed on Dean's homescreen for a long time.

Sometimes he'd replace it with newer, better pictures he took of her. Sam would grin, tell Dean he was very good at photography for someone with such a crappy camera, and Dean would flip him off with a mirroring grin.

Baby finally got off his screen, years later.

Dean didn't know what had got into him, but he swears to himself that he was at least a little bit drunk to have been googling 'I Killed Hitler' quote images.

It was also weird how he got one which matched his tastes perfectly - black background, text in unavoidable bold purple. There were a lot of options on the internet.

That part was stupid, too. He knew that none of them killed Hitler. Of course, because it was _he_ who did.

But he did end up finding the perfect one, and Dean had it on his screen for a good bit of time too. He'd occasionally shove it in Sam's face, for example, to prove a completely unrelated point - just to savor the way his brother looked at him like nothing annoyed him more than Dean did.

And _then_, there was that day, when Cas came back from his run with Sam - he accompanied him on the days when it looked like Dean wouldn't get up till they're back, Dean knew - and promptly declared that he was going to start taking selfies.

Apparently he'd seen many people doing it, had been seeing them do it for years, and was affirmative that he wanted to try it. It almost certainly didn't help when Dean informed him that he hadn't taken a single selfie in his entire life and that he was living just fine.

Cas had always been stubborn.

And he had a phone, now. _And,_ he certainly had always had a way with Dean.

"Why are you so difficult, Dean? Why is it so hard for you to smile at the camera?" Cas grumbled, probably fashioning his tone to sound doubly as annoyed as he was.

"'Cause it's not the camera. I'm smiling at _myself_ here, Cas." Dean rolled his eyes. "It's dumb." He had his phone held at eyelevel, he refused to take it any higher. Then what would be the frigging difference between him and those -

"Then smile at _me_." Cas interrupted, as an effective idea came to him, and he slid into the picture next to Dean. "There. It's not dumb to smile at me, is it?"

Dean sighed, maybe a little flustered. Cas was pressing up against him pretty close to get in the frame. "You know you're really frigging weird, right?"

"I have a fair idea." Cas beamed at him, and pushed Dean's face with his own to fit fully. Dean had to resist snorting at that. What a complete dork. "There." Cas announced. "We look good. Click on the button. It's the white one -"

"I know how to take a goddamn photo, Cas -"

"- then why aren't you doing it?" Cas cut in, slipping into the tone he saves for when he wants to pretend he's really had enough of Dean's fusses. "I don't see you taking the photo, Dean -"

"I can't do it with the hand which is holding the phone, you stupid -" Dean groaned, trying to twist his arm out of where Cas had squeezed it between their bodies, in his nagging at Dean. "It'll fall if I do that. And I can't use my other hand, because then it'll block your face -"

"Oh, leave it to me." Cas huffed, frustrated, and taking the phone from Dean's outstretched hand. "I'll - let me do it, Dean. I'll do it." Dean clawed at the air to get the phone back but Cas was stretching it away now. At least Dean got to untangle his other arm, and didn't even notice as he slung it around Cas - out of habit, or something. "Now you smile, and I'll just press the button in the middle, and -"

"I know how to take a photo, goddammit!" Dean snapped, right as Cas took the photo. Cas turned at him with a frown, because of that.

It came out pretty _candid_, was all the praise anyone could offer.

They took more photos. Dean even smiled in a few - believe him, he tried not to. Cas smiled in most, and in some rare ones, the smile crinkled his eyes and showed off his gums - and they luckily coincided with exactly one of Dean's smiling photos, and it was a perfect one, that one.

If it means Cas will smile like that, Dean's going to take more pictures.

It's not till weeks later, when Dean's scrolling through his gallery looking for something important, that he sees the picture for the first time. It's almost impossible to look away.

He can't seem to recall the other details surrounding it, anymore. Just what the photo shows him, and just the way Cas looks in it, with his hair dark and wild, and his eyes shining from having gotten Dean to comply. Collar slightly upturned from Dean's arm making it that way, and his head turned slightly as if he were about to just look at the real Dean before the camera captured the moment. His smile, proud of the fancy new activity, with glances of barely there dimples hiding in his stubble. He's _beautiful_, and he's happy, and it's a good picture, if there ever was one.

And of course, in the picture too, Dean's only got his eyes on Cas.

In that moment, Dean Winchester had found exactly what he wanted to see, whenever he unlocked his phone, for the rest of his life. And that's the story of how Dean found his wallpaper, for the ages.

(And yes, ever since they enabled different wallpapers for the lockscreen and the homescreen, he's had eleven year old Sammy dressed as a pumpkin for a school halloween fest, on the former. He collected the photo from Missouri some time ago, and Sam detests it audibly, so obviously Dean isn't going to change it ever.)

***

The story about ringtones isn't even that long.

It started off with 'Wanted Dead Or Alive', because the spunky, daydreaming teenage boy he never got to be, but maybe also did - seemed to connect to Bon Jovi's lyrics on a stupidly basic level.

His ringtones made their way through the classics. Bob Dylan, Elton John, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen. Had Eye Of The Tiger for a long time. He had Kansas, Guns 'N Roses, Pink Floyd. He remembers he had Smoke on the Water for a while. All good ones.

After dying a hundred and four times in 2008, he switched to Heat Of The Moment. Sam bitchfaced at him all through those weeks of Asia.

Kevin was the one who brought to his attention, years later, that if they really committed such criminal levels of identity theft, they should try to blend in more. It was right after his phone had suddenly come alive with Freddie Mercury singing, in the middle of a discussion with the sheriff.

"Good taste, no offense." Kevin had begun. "But you've gotta step it down, if you don't want to be noticed any more than you already do."

"He's right." Sam had joined in. "At least give up _something_. Nobody can get you to stop your vintage muscle car around, and she drives like a farm tractor on some roads, Dean."

"Shut your face, bitch." Dean had thrown back, instantly. "Kevin's obviously talking about your golden frigging mane, okay? Get the damn thing cut, and I'll look into silencers or whatever."

Of course, neither of those things ever happened, or would ever happen. But Dean did listen to their resident prophet, and change his ringtone to the Apple ringtone most important people have.

Instead of a legend singing at him, he got musical beeping in a ridiculously annoying rhythm. But it stuck.

It stayed, for good.

(Well, there was that one night, when they were all high in spirits and drunk in celebration, just Cas and him that too, and it had seemed genius to get Cas to record a message for his ringtone in his worst, deepest deadpan.

Cas was easily convinced - the terrific inebriation levels in both of them had to have helped, too - and Dean had woken up in the morning to his phone ringing in Cas's mechanical voice, except this time it was actually machine-driven. "_Dean. Dean, pick up the phone. You're being called. You should pick up the phone, Dean. I think -"_ and Dean hadn't got to hear more of it, completely grizzled by sleep, because although he fucking loved Cas's unfairly hot voice most days, he'd snapped and picked up the phone - only to have Sam cackle at him from the other end and smugly ask him how he likes his new ringtone.

Maybe it had been Sam's idea, after all. Dean obviously would never recall, and the smartass must've known that. He knows all the kinds of drunk Dean can be.

Also, Cas did say 'Dean' a lot, didn't he? But that's a story for another time.)

That's all that can be said on the matter of ringtones. Dean goes back to the beeps soon enough - they're also kind of easy to get used to, he hadn't known that before. Sam has 'normal' ringtones too, and it's fun to try and guess whose - and _which_ of their dozens of phones are ringing, especially on inventory days. They made it into a game years back.

_Cas_, on the other hand? He keeps his phone on vibrate, ever since Jack confided in him how cool it looked, when in the middle of a crowd, or a heated scene, no one notices but Cas feels the vibrations first, and noiselessly picks up his phone and begins to speak.

Like a spy who wears a secret headset, Jack had gone on to say. _The perks of basically being a wave,_ Dean had scoffed, grinning still. He was supposed to be the cool dad. _You get to hear all your fellow wavelengths_.

Cas had just shrugged.

So on vibrate, it stayed - and no one really knows if Castiel even has a ringtone, let alone what it is. The vibration mode is a good enough explanation.

Dean, though, has a fairly good idea of what it might be.

After all, he was who Cas approached for help in retrieving it off Dean's own gift, into his phone's storage.

It's the twelfth song on the mixtape.

##  _Ramble on._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you had a good time! Leave a comment <3 Have an amazing day!


End file.
